EDUCATION FOR REMEMBRANCE OF THE ROMA GENOCIDE

Roma Holocaust: The End of Silence 47
secution and as a condensation of different forms of discrimination
to which the Roma were subjected. As such, the Roma Holocaust
creates the linearity of Romani history, dividing it into periods
“before” and “after”, and gives this history meaning as a continuous
unfolding of persecution 10 .
Making the genocide a fundamental dimension of Romani
history is – firstly – an effort to show the Roma as a people at the
center of the most important events in Europe’s modern history,
not as a marginalized people who vegetate outside of history.
Second, a historical narrative of the fate of the Roma during the
war can become an excellent link to unite the different groups
into which the Roma are divided, by making them aware that
in certain historical situations their differences did not matter:
they were treated the same (at least in principle) because they
were stigmatized as “Gypsies.” In this way, a uniform narrative
of the Holocaust allows members of different Romani groups,
who often do not feel closely associated or are even in conflict,
to envision commonality of fate of the Roma, and this can have
important consequences for the forms their political cooperation
takes now and in the future. Third, the conception of history of
the Roma as a (transnational) nation, which Romani activists
have elaborated, can contribute to the creation of a paradigm of
collective memory in which they can bring together dispersed
individual or family memories. Fourth, the vision of Roma history
based on experience of the genocide allows depicting contemporary
persecutions of the Roma as a continuation of the Nazi
persecutions and thereby surrounding them with a similar aura
of moral condemnation.
The narrative of the Roma Holocaust victims may, therefore,
perform well as a factor that unites different groups of the Roma
by providing them with a cultural frame in which they can develop
10 Ian Hancock, “Gypsy History in Germany and Neighboring Lands. A Chronology
Leading to the Holocaust and Beyond”, in D. Crowe and J. Kolsti, eds.,
The Gypsies of Eastern Europe (Armonk: New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1991).